Liu has worked for such companies as Netscape and Sun Microsystems, and in October 2004 he was working as an escalation manager at Sun when he decided to give it all up.

He hasn't looked back since.

Now Liu is a full-time photographer who is beginning to make a name for himself around the Bay Area as a promising talent, especially for his arresting underwater images.

"I just couldn't take the business of it anymore—the business and the politics," says Liu, describing what he calls his "disillusionment over where the high-tech computer industry was going."

"I watched the business fall apart ... the valley was floundering," he says. "When the tech bust came, it just really made sense to walk away and try something else."

So Liu decided to throw caution to the wind and concentrate all his efforts on his desire to be a successful photographer.

The San Jose resident recalls when, at age 16, he inherited his first camera. He describes it as an old, beat-up, "fully manual 35mm camera—there was nothing automatic about it."

Once he started shooting pictures, there was no turning back, he says. "As most photographers do, I got the photo bug, and I have never put down a camera since."

One of Liu's other loves is scuba diving. He first began diving in the mid-1990s and loved it so much that he started taking classes to become certified. After progressing through different certifications for about a year, he finally hit the rank of Dive Master, which allows him to lead diving tours and assist other students. His favorite Bay Area spots to dive are in the Monterey and Carmel areas.

Eventually, Liu got the idea to combine his two hobbies. He started out by taking a small camcorder along on dives. He made a few home videos and shared them with family and friends, to positive reactions. Eventually, he progressed to taking a digital camera along to capture still shots.

"I loved it—after that, I never touched a camcorder again," he recalls.

He began diving with his camera once or twice a month. After a while, he started to build a portfolio of photos from various dive spots. Over time, Liu and his wife went on vacations to several exotic locations, including Hawaii, the Galapagos Islands, Fiji and Mexico, which provided Liu with additional backdrops for his underwater collection.

"That's where I was able to get a lot of my best shots," he says.

After having built up a considerable collection, Liu began to seek out opportunities to display his work. He says he began scouring local newspapers and consulted a 2004­05 photographer's market index, which guided him in making many submissions.

One of Liu's first triumphs was his selection as the Photographer of the Week for the ScubaDiver.com online magazine.

As luck would have it, one of Liu's friends who frequents the Saratoga Library with his children for storytimes read a notice in the Saratoga News that called for artists to submit works to be considered for the library's next Art Wall display. Liu submitted, and was chosen for, the prominent 50-foot display in the library's front entrance.

Staff members at the library say that so far Liu's display has turned many a head.

"He caused so much attention when he was hanging his show that it took us an extra hour to get it on the walls," says Saratoga Arts Commissioner Mary Lou Taylor. Taylor says that his exhibit has been so well received that Dolly Barnes, the community librarian, has invited Liu to give a lecture at the library on April 20, including a slideshow and discussion of his art.

"I try to focus my work on being able to share the world underwater, which most people don't get to see," he says. "I try to make it so people can relate to it as art, as well as the thrill of being underwater."

Liu offers a word of caution for anyone considering going after some of the up-close, deepwater shots he has managed to get—he says that level of excursion is not suited to beginners.

"You have to be really comfortable with diving before you can even think about taking a camera under water. The diving really has to be second nature. I try to make it look easy, like any artist does, but really, a lot of these shots were made under very harsh conditions," he says, describing many a harrowing dive when he was forced to fight against strong currents and surges in the ocean, getting bashed against rocks and cut on barnacles.

However, Liu says those experiences only strengthen his confidence in the decision to turn away from his high-tech job and focus on his art—he says the conditions don't get any easier, and he knows his body won't be able to handle it forever, so he is seizing the moment while it is still available to him.

Only a few months into his new career, Liu seems pleased at his current level of progress.

"I gave myself a year to see if I could make inroads in the career," he says. "If I'm not making the progress I should be making, I will think about getting back into tech."

However, Liu says, if he does go back, this time he will go after more of the creative side of technology and computers.

For the time being, he is concentrating on making at least two to three artist submissions per month at locations like the San Jose Museum of Art, various publications and wildlife conservation organizations.

"It sure beats the computer business," he says.

Peter Liu's underwater photography exhibit is on display at the Saratoga Library, as well as on his website at www.kaiscapes.com.